Fireflies BY Owl City The Song Good Or Bad?

I'm too high for this, but let me try.

Radio stations receive and play music from record labels regularly (labels will send stations singles and promo cds). These singles are what are make it into the "charts" and get airtime. It's only logical for major record labels, in the economic sense, to sign bands that will appeal to the most people. We all know that "most people" aren't exactly "musical people", so the mainstream music appeal mostly applies to people who lack musical inclination. WHICH IS A PRETTY BIG FUCKING FLAW, RECORD AND RADIO INDUSTRY.

I'm not trying to say mainstream music cannot be good or anything. Sometimes society catches on to a decent tune, but there's absolutely no correlation between quality and popularity, like you're suggesting. Sorry.

 

I love you. Also, this:

 

They forced me to hook up a radio system to the plant PA system where I work (me being the electrical engineer who also handles majority of the wiring).

So I have to listen to the "current music radio" channel all day long at work (9-10 hours of it). They play the same half a dozen songs all day, I hear this song maybe 10 times a day while at work... it's annoying as hell.

 

I do not like the song to overplayed. :{

 

i quite like this song and for that matter, every other song on his album

owl city is different and i like it. though, i'd imagine that if it was played on and on, i'd probably get sick of it.

 

Well then, what is it that makes a song popular? Just because there are songs out there that do not receive the attention they deserve doesn't mean the ones who do get attention are less worthy of it. You sound very much like a bitter sell out artist, to be honest. The Music industry does what it can to make money. Real Artists with quality talent and skill that is evident in their music are fine whether they make money or not, it's their passion anyways.

 

>implying that most mainstream music involves talent

Let's face it, most of the garbage played non-stop on the radio is autotuned to hell and has synthetic, repetitive drum/melody hooks written by other people. An "artist" could probably roll up, do couple hours' worth of monotone singing and leave. Owl City live is a perfect example of this - Adam Young in person is lucky to hit half the notes he does on the album because he's been autotuned so badly. Seriously, if you gave me and Void a single day with an autotuner and some lyrics, we could make some trashy synth-pop too. And that's why it's popular - it's not quality that matters, but style. Happy, catchy synth-pop is popular at the moment for some reason, so people like it. Simple as that.

And real artists who actually put effort into their work without any pretenses as to what it is (AES DANA OH BABY) aren't fine whether they make money or not. Passion for music doesn't pay the rent or buy food.

 

Well then that means everyone could be Owl City. Everyone could be Breathe Carolina. I don't think so. And yes, talent is involved in mainstream music. Don't tell me Owl City just walked into a studio one day and came out as the overplayed artist that he is. Style is still something to be admired.

 

No, he used MySpace and built a network of the sort of people who like mainstream music before doing a couple of live gigs for those people. Then he walked into the studio.

 

... What makes a song popular varies on the target audience. Today in the mainstream US radio business, it takes the need to appeal to musically illiterate teenaged girls, for example. Because of the relativity of success, I disagree strongly with your second sentence. As for the following, what the hell? Sell-out? Is this sarcasm or are you just throwing words around?

My point in case.

This is so untrue. SO many musicians and bands lack the funds to do touring to promote their music because of the capitalism that is mainstream radio. Financial struggles frequently cause artists to disband and not be able to afford proper musical equipment. Not to mention artists without money have their songwriting time replaced with minimum-wage bathroom washing. Sorry, but as nice as it would be to follow passions, financial woes have the ability to seriously prevent this. You have no idea what you are talking about.

Way to know your shit. I don't think he walked into any studio with intense musicianship, my friend. As far as I know he uses Propellerhead Reason 4 as a DAW with blatantly shit VSTi presets. Slap that on any basic major scale generic electropop midi sequence, throw in some autotuned bullshit, quantize that shit, and BAM: Owl fucking City.


PS - The spaces between my fingers are right where yours fit perfectly.

 

he probably recorded it in his basement with a computer microphone while singing in front of an electric fan... you'll get the same thing...

 

I can see that you know exactly what he does. How come no one else the same? And what does intense musicianship have to do with his success? It just seems he found the right crowd to please. And yeah, I've heard of bands and musicians in poverty, it's wrong for me to say "Real Artists", it would be better to say, other artists.

This thread started as a question "Do you like Fireflies by Owl City?" and people are going far and wide to dig his hole deeper than it already is with his autotune and what not. I'm just saying the song's got it's charm, and I get the same treatment.

 

This paragraph turned me on so much.

PS - Oh darling, I wish you were here.

People do the same on a regular basis, but they lack the connections or what-have-you to make that leap from unknown indie to noticeable force of music that is likely to get a deal.

Intense musicianship is what people in non-abused genres need to break into a chart full of terrible music. So it's got nothing to do with his success in this case.

Finding the right crowd to please doesn't make a song good.

No, it was "is this song good". And we are saying it isn't for clear, concise reasons. If you're going to challenge them, best have a counter-argument as to why they're good instead of leading people along into an argument over what the definition of "good music" is. Yeah, it's catchy. Yeah, it has a certain charm. Pity it shares that charm with the dozens of other generic synth-pop out there.

Bawwwwww.

 

I want to fuck you so badly, babe.







... That's all I got, mods. Suis' post covered everything I had to say.

 

I just got owned. Good job guys. )

 

To just be randomly honest, I had no idea Owl City was popular in any sense (was a basement teen afaik), but I have his album "Oceans Eyes" on my computer and I've listened to it. While it's shallow music in general, filled to the brim with cliche progressions and cheesy lyrics, I'm not going to argue that it's not catchy to some degree.

... Which is why it concerns me greatly that me and Suis both quoted "Vanilla Twilight".

(Mods can give us "warnings" all they want, I still wanna touch ya there, babe.)